Silver the Hedgehog
by Waxing Shadow
Summary: When two heroes come across a being of incredible power, they must team up to prevent the end of the world.
1. Chapter 1 - Dreams of an Introduction

` **Welcome to my newest fanfic on the site, "Silver the Hedgehog". Before we begin, I will say up front that I don't own any of the established characters in this story. I'm merely... borrowing them... yeah, that's right. Without further ado...**

Chapter 1

_ My name is Silver. I come from a time many years in the future, where technology and nature have intermingled to the point that they now rely on each other in order to thrive. However, this harmony is constantly threatened by those who wish to destroy or rule this world. That's where I come in. To this day, I fully believe that I was born to protect this balance, for I was given gifts that no one else has. This road I walk gets lonely, though. Deep down, I really wish I had some friends…_

"Hurry it up, already!" Matt tapped his foot impatiently at the foot of the stairs. It seemed that Matt would never get used to this. Angela was always late, whether it was due to her personal grooming, or her putting the finishing touches on one of her "latest and greatest" inventions. The only question now was this: Which one was it today?

"On my way." The girl in question met him at the bottom of the steps. She cleaned up pretty nicely, Matt admitted to himself: Her brown hair was fairly long, reaching down to her shoulders. She had blue eyes that were often obscured by the black goggles she often wore. Her outfit was another one of her staples: An orange not-quite-zipped-up-all-the-way sweatshirt with a plain white tee underneath it, and black jeans. She finish off the look with black combat boots.

Matt himself took some pride in his own appearance, though not to the extent that Angela did at times. He had brown eyes and his black hair was rather messy, held together by a white headband he wore so often that Angela often joked about him having it "trademarked". His attire was simple: He had a 2-peice black training uniform with a hilt for his daggers built in to specialized "pockets" towards the sides of the shirt piece. His shoes were actually normal white tennis shoes.

"You sure you got everything?" Matt asked, with a slight hint of annoyance.

Angela chuckled lightly as she answered "Do I have everything? What kind of fool do you take me fo-"

Matt cut her off with a cold, steely glare. With a sigh, Angela headed back upstairs to get her bags. As she got them and left, she thought about bringing her robot companions, Tribot and Hexbot. Then she remembered how annoyed Matt was the last time she brought them, so she dismissed the idea. She went down to meet her partner so they could head to the base. Luckily, it was a mere 10-minute hike away.

"So, what was that signal you were talking about?" Matt asked his friend as they walked.

Angela seemed lost in thought for a moment before catching on. "Um, yeah… I think it came from somewhere close by. Let me check." She took her homemade energy radar out of her bag and turned it on. Sure enough, a blue dot appeared north of the red arrow that showed their location. "The radar's picking up the signal somewhere north of here. I'm not exactly sure what it is right now though, so I'll check it out when we get to the lab."

"You think it could be Nega again?" Matt inquired curiously. Dr. Eggman Nega, or simply Nega as Matt had always known him, was a crazed scientist that periodically came here from the Sol Dimension and tried to conquer/destroy the world (he could never tell which). In fact, Matt met Angela during a battle with The Doctor. In fact, in an odd way, he's grateful for it. That doesn't stop either of them from crushing his evil ambitions time and time again.

"Eh… maybe. Something feels off, though. Nega usually leaves a signal I could easily decode from the radar."

"I guess that means that Nega could be trying something else." Matt offered.

"Or maybe, there could be something else entirely out there." Angela offered as an alternative.

"Oh, we'll see."

More questions than answers surrounded the duo as they arrived at the base.

**Be sure to review if you liked it!**


	2. Chapter 2 - Dreams of a Mission

**Welcome back, everyone! This chapter mainly consists of world and character building. Regardless, enjoy!**

Chapter 2

After a quick retinal scan, Angela led her partner into her mountainside lair. Matt had always been somewhat amazed at how well-maintained the place was compared to her own room. In fact, the place looked state-of-the-art compared to the hurricane of strewn papers that usually took up about half the room. Then again, she would've gotten in some major trouble with GUN if she didn't keep a clean as while it technically is her lab, they have jurisdiction with most laboratories as high tech as hers.

"Remind me ask you how you keep this place clean." Matt remarked before promptly getting back on topic. "Anyway, let's see if we can't pinpoint that signal of yours."

As per usual, while Angela took care of booting up and using the computer itself, Matt kept a sharp eye out for anything odd, as his young scientist friend had somewhat of a bad habit of missing out on details. At first, the satellite radar picked up nothing unusual, outside of a few warm points. They tended to brush these off as they could have come from birds that liked to fly around the area. As they examined the scans more towards the north however, that same unknown energy signature appeared once again. It was towards an isle known as Whale Coast.

"I'm thinking that this is what you were talking about?" Matt asked.

"Yep. That's it all right." his partner confirmed.

"You sure this isn't another one of Nega's crazy schemes?"  
"I'm positive."

"I hope you know what you doing. I don't want to end up fishing you out of another mess." Matt cautioned, knowing Angela's penchant for running headlong into dangerous situations with little more than a gut instinct to go on.

Seeing this coming, Angela place a reassuring hand on her friend's back. "You worry too much. You and I both know that I can take pretty good care of myself anyway if things do get rough."

That much was true. Many times, she will call upon one of her mechs if she was backed into a corner. And even when she was in a position where she didn't have access to her gadgets, she had some solid self-defense skills. Not nearly as good as his, he noted, but decent enough to buy time at least.

"Okay, but we better check in with HQ first." With that, they logged in and contacted GUN HQ. A relatively young man with blond hair and a military uniform greeted them.

"Morning, Mr. Batelli." He greeted, preferring to Matt before following suit with Angela. "Ms. Robotnik"

Angela winced a bit at the use of her last name, but quickly got over it and simply replied in unison with Matt, "Good Morning, Commander Blake."

"What seems to be the issue?" The commander asked, getting down to business.

"We've detected an unknown energy signature to the northwest." Matt began "Requesting permission to investigate."

"Well, we'll need to download a copy of the data off of your computer for verification purposes. Then we'll see whether or not we can grant you clearance. Please wait."

After about five minutes, the commander got back to them and granted them clearance for their mission. After taking Angela's portable radar and Matt's own GPS in hand, they headed off for their destination.

**Want more? Then be sure to read and review. It really helps! Also, to the person who last reviewed, I took your advice and worded a sentence in that paragraph a little differently.**


	3. Chapter 3 - Dreams of a Rescue

**Hi, everyone! This one is the longest chapter yet (not to mention that it took me forever to write), but it does set up a bit and brings the title character into the fray. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Silver or Nega. I have them via a lease from Sonic Team and Sega.**

Chapter 3

As was often the case, the trio made their way to Whale Coast on foot. Matt took the lead, moving with rather impressive speed and clearing obstacles with relative ease. Angela on the other hand struggled to keep up with her partner, as she had far less experience and none of the training that Matt did. At one point, Matt came to a dead stop. He got the sense that something was off.

"What's up?" Angela asked when he stopped.

Instead of breaking his concentration to answer her, he simply held up a hand to silence her. Upon observing his surroundings, he found nothing out of the ordinary. However, he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was nearby. He simply told her, "Be on your guard."

The scientist simply shrugged and took his word for it. How was she supposed to know what was out there? Sure she had her instincts, but she knew deep down that she didn't have anything really concrete. Besides, Matt was better with this kind of stuff anyway.

A few minutes later, the duo came across something. It was a gray, egg- shaped robot, or rather the bisected, sparking remains of it. As a moved further towards the coast, they saw more of these destroyed machines, only with different deformities. Some had quite literally "lost their heads", while others were actually smashed into numerous tiny pieces.

"Not one of Nega's schemes, eh?" Matt quipped as he looked upon the various degrees of mechanical carnage that was strewn along the beach. He then sent a confident smirk over to his partner, as if to say "I was right, and you know it."

Angela growled at him. She absolutely hated when this happened. She was jarred out of her annoyance by another thought: who or what could've done this? A very familiar voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

"Ohoho! It's always a pleasure to see you two again, young Angela and Matthew."

The duo looked up to see a large airship above them, with an egg-shaped hovercraft exiting it. The driver's appearance was unmistakable. It was a man with the distinctive body shape of an egg. He had rather skinny legs and arms, and a rather large, white, mustache. His sunglasses matched the main color of his jacket, which in and of itself gave off the impression of a walrus. His shoes were rather tall. In fact, one could easily mistake them for combat stilettos were it not for the fact that the shoes lacked actual heels.

_Heh. Go figure. _Angela thought. "I don't know why I even bother asking this at this point, but what do you want, Nega?"

"Well since you've asked, I assure you that all I desire today is a little visit from an old friend of mine. Have you by any chance noticed a white hedgehog around this area?"

Both teens exchanged puzzled looks with each other before responding in unison, "Um… No."

"I see. Well, it seems that I've come all this way for nothing…" Eggman Nega calmly stated while stroking his moustache." "Or so it would seem… I suppose I'll simply cut my losses and start looking for those all-powerful Chaos Emeralds now. But before I go, here's a little something to keep you company in case you get lonely. Ta-ta!"

With that, the overweight scientist took his leave, but not before sending the very battleship he'd arrived in against the duo. They were soon surrounded by robots at all sides, just like the ones they'd found on the way here.

-  
Silver the Hedgehog was flying around a forest, enjoying the warm spring day and the wind in his quills. He really loved these moments when he didn't have to go off and fight Eggman Nega or some other evil creature. A little while later, he plopped down on top of a tree branch to relax. Everything just seemed like it was in perfect harmony today. He was half-asleep and gazing at the canopy, when he heard a commotion coming from a nearby beach. Now wide awake and more than a little curious, he decided to check it out. Staying out of sight, he flew in the direction of the noise. He was blissfully unaware of what he would find there…

Matt took out his twin daggers and went to work cutting down the surrounding enemies while Angela called up her own mobile turrets to do some damage. When they'd finished with the robots, they took notice of something strange: the battleship hadn't fired on them at all during the battle. In fact, it hadn't even moved from its place above them since Nega came out of it. What came next terrified the two teens. The ship appeared to be shutting itself off in midair. Matt and Angela screamed as the now-deactivated ship came hurtling towards them. Just seconds before they could be crushed however, the ship froze and became surrounded in a mysterious green aura. A voice called to them.

"Get out of the way!"

Angela and Matt were too stunned at what just happened to move. The voice came in louder and much more urgent. Whoever was behind it was clearly straining.

"G-Go! I don't… know how much longer… I can hold on!"

Snapped out of their stupor, the duo scrambled to get out of the shadow of the battleship. Once they got as far away as they could, the ship came down with a thunderous impact, spraying sand and water everywhere. When Angela and Matt got up the nerve to get close to the crash site, they noticed what appeared to be a white creature of some sort lying unconscious next to it.

**That's all for now, folks. Review if you feel up to it.**


	4. Chapter 4 - Dreams of a Discovery

**Hello to you all! Thanks so much for the support! Anyway, this chapter begins bringing our main 3 characters together. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I... shouldn't have to repeat myself at this point.**

Chapter 4

"He looks unconscious." Matt noted to himself as he approached the creature. Angela followed close behind her black-clad colleague, taking care to avoid the downed ship's rubble along the way. In all honesty, neither of the pair was able to make much sense of their find.

"Just what is he, anyway?" Angela questioned, genuinely curious.

Matt circled the downed animal, carefully observing it from as many angles as possible. "Your guess is as good as mine. The only thing I can tell for sure at this point is that it's anthropomorphic."

Angela then turned to face Matt. "You know we really should help him, right?"

"What?" Matt hissed, stunned by his friend's question. "How would we do that? We don't know who he is, or for that matter _what _he is."

"Well, we always could…" Angela began, only to be cut off.

"Oh, no. Not going to happen, Angela. GUN barely let you keep those robotic pests of yours. What do you think they'll say when they realized that we're suddenly harboring some stranger from nowhere, huh?"

"You're kidding, right?" the teenage scientist retorted, now rather annoyed. "This guy just saved our lives! Let me reiterate. If it weren't for him, we would both be DEAD. You and I both know that the absolute _least_ we could do for him is take him in, patch him up, and thank him."

Matt was very conflicted now. On the one hand, if they were caught with this guy, their jobs would probably be in jeopardy. After all, they certainly weren't allowed to bring just anybody into a GUN-sanctioned research facility. On the other hand, Angela was right: whoever or whatever this person was, he just saved them both from a very early grave. To tell the truth, he really was grateful for that. It certainly didn't help that Angela was now wearing the very same I'm-right-and-you-know-it smirk he'd had earlier. Finally, he relented. "Just keep him out of sight, and he leaves as soon as he's better. Got that?"

Angela's face lit up as she ran over to the being in question. The duo took turns carrying him as they headed back to the lab.

* * *

Silver's head throbbed as he finally came to. He'd make it a note to keep the heavy lifting to a minimum from now on. He pushed back his thoughts as he took a look at his surroundings. He appeared to be on a couch in a sitting room of some kind. The couch was part of a ring of similar couches with a small table with a single potted plant on top of it at the center. All and all, the room was actually quite relaxing… Wait a minute. What was he thinking? He had no idea where he was! He had to find out what was going on here. He tried levitating, but barely got away from the couch before collapsing onto the floor. What could he possibly do in such a weakened state? A single voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"You okay? You really shouldn't be moving around like that."

Silver looked up to see a boy wearing a white t-shirt and blue jeans. He looked tired and seemed a bit annoyed. Silver wondered whether he woke him up. Just what time was it, anyway?

"Um… Hello, can you speak?" the boy asked.

"Y-Yeah… I'm fine." Silver managed. "Where am I? Who are you?"

The boy's expression became firm. "In due time. Right now, you should be focusing on getting your strength back. Get some sleep."

Silver wanted to argue, but knew that he was far too exhausted to put up a fight. He simply nodded yes and made his way onto the nearest couch.

"Goodnight…" the boy started.

"Silver." The gray hedgehog finished.

"Right." The boy finished before leaving and shutting the door to the sitting room.

It didn't take long for Silver to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.

**Well, what did you think? I'd love to hear about it (via review) if you have the time.**


	5. Chapter 5 - Dreams of a Jubilation

**I apologize profusely for the long wait. I initially didn't know what to do with this chapter. Here's what I eventually came up with. I hope you enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Sonic the Hedgehog. That honor goes to Sega and Sonic Team.**

Chapter 5

Early the next morning, Matt and Angela were at the latter's apartment, deciding what to do about their situation.

"What do we do with him now that he's here?" Matt inquired, referring to the little "guest" they'd taken in earlier.

"We've already been over this." Angela responded. "We'll patch him up if we need to, thank him, and send him on his way." Suddenly, a thought occurred to her. "By the way, did you ever get his name?"

Matt had to dig a little in his mind to find the name, seeing as he was still rather tired. "Uh… yeah. I think he said his name was Sliver, or Silver. Something like that."

"Hmm… Well, I guess we'll just have to ask him when he wakes up. In the meantime though, we have bigger fish to fry. I think I've got a hit on Eggman Nega's location."

"Really? Where?"

Angela took her radar off of a nearby table and examined it for a second before switching it on and calibrating it. "He seems to be at some old ruins not far from here. More specifically, they're a couple of miles east."

Matt couldn't help but feel a small bit of apprehension when Angela said that. He wasn't sure whether it was just his nerves getting to him, his mind not being quite awake yet, both, or something else entirely. "Is there anything particularly interesting about them?"

"Yeah. I think there's some old equipment there." Angela answered, her mood starting to brighten.

"Equipment?"

"You know, like old robots, tools, et cetera. Stuff like that." Angela got more and more excited as she went on. She'd always been a tinkerer by nature, and was always ready to play around with anything new (or at least, new to her) that she got her hands on. At times like these, Matt knew he had to step in to reign her in.

"Hold on. You do know that we still have to clear this with GUN, right?" Matt reminded her, aware that she was getting ahead of herself.

Angela rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. _Then_ we can head out and I can get some valuable data I can use later."

Even Matt couldn't hold back a smile at this point. While he didn't care too much for gizmos and gadgets himself, he really did admire Angela's passion for them. Every time she'd finish one of her inventions, she wouldn't waste a second getting in contact with him and talking his ear off about it. He didn't mind it all that much, though. Her ability to really get into things like this was actually one of his favorite things about her. "Just make sure you don't leave anything behind." Matt reminded her.

"Don't worry. I won't."

* * *

Unbeknownst to the duo, Silver had been awake for a while and overheard the entire conversation. He decided that he would follow them, not only to do his job and tail the good doctor, but to learn more about the two people who had taken him in.

**Did you like it? Is there something I need to improve on? Feel free to tell me in a review!**


	6. Chapter 6 - Dreams of an Installation

**Sorry to keep you waiting, folks! I just got back into the swing of writing this story again. Enjoy!**

* * *

Chapter 6

It took them a while, but the pair made it to their destination: a long-abandoned graveyard filled with machinery.

"So this is the place, huh?" Matt asked.

Angela nodded, too stunned to come up with a straight answer. She took in the place as if it were her own personal Heaven. All this machinery might have been considered junk to some, but to her, it was the equivalent to a kid having free reign at a candy store.

Before he could stop her, Angela ran off towards the remains of a factory.

"Angela…" Matt trailed off, holding his hand out. He couldn't believe this. On second thought, maybe he could. He nursed a sudden headache. _Why do you always do this to me, Ange? _He sighed and ran off after the girl.

Silver had tailed Matt and Angela while staying out of sight. After seeing the latter take off with Matt following, he thought he might as well tag along too, as he'd already gotten this far. _This might actually be kinda fun_, he thought as he flew off.

Angela made her way deep into the factory, marveling at what she saw. Tons of conveyor belts and scrap metal lined the rooms. Long dormant computers lined quite a few of the walls as the factory stretched on endlessly. It was just as she'd imagined. She did feel a little bad about leaving Matt, though. She would've loved to show him this!

Matt observed his surroundings as he walked through the mechanical labyrinth that his friend had wandered into. He had to admit, this place was impressive all right, especially up close. He called Angela repeatedly while fishing with his ears for her voice.

"Matt?" came a voice from afar.

_Thank you, acute hearing_, Matt thought, smiling to himself. He raced after the source of the noise.

Angela was fiddling with a robot she'd found when she was jarred out of her thoughts by Matt's voice.

"Angela!"

The scientist whirled around to see the flustered and annoyed young ninja staring back at her, arms crossed.

The boy let out an exasperated sigh before beginning. "Remember what I said about not leaving anything behind?"

"Yeah." Angela answered rather calmly considering how bad she actually felt. "Why?"

"Don't you think that 'anything' includes… oh, I don't know… _me_, as well?"

"Well, technically, you're a person, not a thing. So if you'd said not to leave any_one_ behind…"

"Oh, whatever," Matt said, hoping to avoid another one of her technicality tangents. "The principle still stands."

"I know," the girl mumbled, a note of apology in her voice. Matt decided that that was enough for now and decided to change the subject.

"Uh… what'cha got there?" the black-clad boy asked, referring to the rather large robot she'd been toying with.

"I guess it's some kind of robot dog." She replied as if it couldn't be any more obvious.

"Yeah, I kinda got that part. What are you doing with it?"

"Just a bit of playing around. Just wanted to see how this thing ticked, is all."

Matt suddenly remembered the real reason why they were here in the first place.

"Wait, what about Eggman's signal?"

Angela looked up from the robot. She furrowed her brow in confusion for a second before gasping in realization.

"Oh, right!" The girl dug out her scanner and activated it. "Well, there seems to be nothing here…"

She stared at the tool for a few seconds before her eyes widened in surprise. "Scratch that, he is definitely here!"

Now Matt was confused. "But I thought you said—"

Matt was cut off by a loud crash followed by the familiar voice of the Doctor himself.

"Why, hello children! Still in one piece, I see?"

* * *

**Not a very action-heavy chapter, was it? But don't worry. Things will start picking up soon. For now, read and review if you feel like it! Merry Christmas! **


	7. Chapter 7 - Dreams of a Situation

**Hi, everyone! Thanks for the review, "Sword legion". This one's for you!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own SEGA's characters. No, I didn't take out a mortgage for them, either.**

* * *

Chapter 7

"Why, hello children! Still in one piece, I see?"

Matt and Angela turned to see the gray-mustached scientist hovering over them.

"Eggman. Thought you might show up," Matt said matter-of-factly. "Know that you're not getting your hands on that emerald."

"Not without a fight!" Angela followed, striking a fighting pose.

Eggman didn't seem too concerned with their threats. "Oh, ho! How I'd like to see you feeble little rats try to resist… it's a shame that we'll have to _cut_ this little engagement short! Meet my Slice Ninjas!"

Suddenly, five green humanoid robots with bladed fingers and toes drilled out of the ground, surrounding the two.

"Do you always have to have your toys do your dirty work for you?" Angela asked, half curious and half annoyed.

"You're just jealous."

"Jealous?" Angela would've laughed if she weren't actually scared of these things. "Ha! These things are such a waste of parts."

"We'll see about that." Eggman's grin widened. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got emeralds to find, worlds to conquer, silly little things like that. See ya, suckers!"

Eggman took off, leaving the teens to their seemingly grim fate. Angela turned to her friend, fear obvious on her features.

"Well, any ideas?"

Matt already had his daggers out. "Yeah. Cut as many of them down as possible."

"What?" the girl said, almost screaming. "What do you mean, _as possible_?"

Matt nodded grimly. "Exactly what I said. Even with my daggers, I can only handle so much of this. And there are five of them. FIVE pairs of saw blades are coming at us. Hand to hand combat is way too dangerous here. It… doesn't look good."

Matt did do his best to slice the robots up with his dagger, but he could only do so much damage. Even Angela brought out her hovercraft to try and ram them… only for them to get right back up. If she had to credit the Mad Doctor for one thing, it was that he made his robots durable.

"You got missiles in that thing?" an exhausted Matt asked. He was dodging to buy time at this point, and grasping at straws.

"No… and it's not going to last much longer" Angela said, defeated. "So… any last words?"

Unfortunately, her words gave the robots an opening. He had stopped dodging when he was hit by the gravity of what she'd said. The robots took advantage and added a deep cut to the side to his growing list of lacerations. The boy grunted in pain, but refused to collapse.

Angela screamed at the sight, and, in a panic, leapt out of the (relatively) safe hovercraft to check on her friend.

The robots were about to gore the pair when something stopped them. A green field of energy surrounded the robots and lifted them up into the air before throwing them across the room.

Matt and Angela turned around to see the source: the very same hedgehog that had rescued them the day before. The creature shot a concerned look at the pair.

"You guys need to get out of here. I'll handle them."

"Y-yeah, right." Angela stammered out in shock.

Matt managed to limp to the hovercraft whilst clutching his sliced side. The blood loss might have been starting to affect him though, as his "thank you" came out rather slurred.

Angela wasn't exactly unscathed either, but she was more or less capable of walking. Thankfully for them both, the hovercraft, while really beat up, was still functional. The girl certainly had a lot on her mind as she drove home.

With the two teens gone, Silver turned his attention to the robots as they were recovering from his first attack.

"Let me guess. You heaps of metal belong to Eggman, right?"

The robots looked at him as if to say "No, duh!" and charged him.

The gray hedgehog responded by focusing psychic energy into his palm before making a fist and pounding the ground. The resulting shockwave served to levitate a few of them while Silver surrounded himself in a cone of energy and slammed into the two on the ground at a high speed. The impact smashed them to pieces instantly. He let the final three drop and pondered their fate.

"How about a taste of your own medicine," the telekinetic hedgehog said as the idea struck him. He ripped off their blade appendages and began carving the last three robots up one by one.

After all was said and done, Silver sighed and briefly looked over his work. _Well that's done, _he thought. _But what about those two, and what exactly do they have to do with Eggman? I need answers. _He had a feeling that this was all connected somehow, and not just because of the Chaos Emeralds. Little did he know that this would get even bigger than he could ever have imagined.

* * *

**What did you think? Feel free to tell me in a review!**


	8. Chapter 8 - Dreams of a Team-Up

**Long time, no see, everyone! I'm finally back with another chapter of this story. As always, all SEGA properties mentioned herein belong to SEGA. Enjoy!**

* * *

Matt slowly opened his eyes to find himself back at Angela's apartment on a couch. Groaning, he made an effort to move, but found himself at the mercy of his throbbing left side.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you."

The boy looked to the side to find his partner walking up to him, a somewhat serious look on her face.

"Glad to see that you're awake though. We both cut it really close, didn't we?"

"Uh-huh," Matt mumbled, recollecting the day's events.

Angela walked around to get Matt a glass of water. There was a noticeable limp in her steps.

"You know, you lost a lot of blood back there. It's lucky that I'd been working on something for just that occasion."

Matt gave Angela a perplexed look. "Working on something? Just how many of these little side projects do you have?"

"More than you know," Angela responded, some semblance of her lighthearted disposition returning to her voice. "You know, it's a good thing that that guy saved us back there. Otherwise, we would've been dead for sure."

"Right. I guess we owe him one now."

"Oh, we owe him _way_ more than one," the techie girl corrected. "Besides, I think he's got some kind of stake in this as well."

"How do you figure?"

"Just a hunch. Now, we might have to do some digging to find him—"

"Uh, hello…" called a familiar voice from outside.

"…or he could just find us," Matt finished.

Angela rolled her eyes. "Oh, you're leaping to conclusions. It can't possibly be that easy. "

She opened the door to find the very centerpiece of their previous conversation floating right in front of her.

_Man, I hate it when he's right_, she mentally groaned as she let him in. "Hey there… you."

"It's Silver," the gray creature provided. "Silver the Hedgehog."

"Nice to meet you. Name's Angela. That over there's Matt."

Silver peeked over to see the injured boy acknowledge his presence with a quick 'hey'."

"I'm guessing you guys are after Eggman too, right?"

"Yup. We work for GUN. We're trying to make sure he doesn't get his hands on the Chaos Emeralds."

"GUN…" the hedgehog trailed off. _If the government's involved, it's gotta be big,_ he thought.

"How did you find this place, anyway?"

"I just tailed you and followed the routes you took," Silver answered casually.

"Oh, that figures." _So that's how he got to us so fast._ "Funny. We were going to start looking for you anyway. We… really could use your help."

Silver rubbed the back of his head nervously. "I was actually coming down to find out what you knew." The hedgehog's expression turned serious once more. "I don't know what Eggman's up to exactly, but I have really bad feeling about it. Since you're involved, it's pretty obvious that he's not planning some run-of-the-mill plot of his."

"That much, we could guess. Have you found out anything new?"

Silver shook his head. "Nope. All I know is that this is kinda disturbing."

Angela thought for a moment. "Say, do you have any permanent place to stay?"

Matt, who'd overheard the whole conversation up to this point, perked up at the question.

"Angela, what're you getting at?"

"Quiet, you," the girl said to her partner before turning her attention to Silver. "Well?"

"Not really. I just sleep wherever I can."

"Well, if you like, you could always stay with us for the time being. Like I said, he really could use your help."

Silver mentally struggled with this idea. On the one hand, he didn't really know much about these people. Could he really trust them? On the other hand, these two GUN agents were after the same thing he was, and they were his only leads to the Doctor. With a sigh, he reached his decision.

"Are you sure it's okay to be here?"

Both Matt and Angela answered simultaneously.

"No!"

"Of Course!"

"Hold on a second." Angela headed off to talk to her friend alone.

* * *

"What happened to patching him up and sending him on his way?"

"Circumstances have changed. We owe this guy our lives many times over at this point. He's as involved as we are."

"Yeah, I get that," Matt relented. "But what'll we tell everybody at HQ? I'm pretty sure they won't take kindly to us picking up random hitchhiking anthros."

"I don't know… we could just make something up."

"Like what?"

The girl thought for a moment. "I could say that I invented him…"

"Considering your last name, a biological experiment coming from you wouldn't look very good."

Angela's face went red with a mixture of annoyance and shame. "Don't remind me."

"Look," Matt sighed, his voice taking on a more sympathetic tone. "I get what you're saying, but I just don't see how we can simply hide him."

"You're the closest thing GUN has to a ninja. You're great at stealth! Can't you figure something out?"

After a moment of silence, said "ninja" finally relented.

"I'll see what I can do."

"Woohoo!" Angela enveloped Matt in a hug before the latter could react. She broke it off after about 10 seconds and ran off, presumably to tell their new houseguest the good news. Matt could only shake his head.

"Why do you always drag me into this kind of stuff, Ange?"

* * *

**That's all for this one, folks. Review if you feel led to!**


	9. Chapter 9 - Dreams of a Grand Scheme

Unbeknownst to the duo, an unwelcome visitor in the form of a robotic fly had been picking up information to send back to its master. Keeping its distance, it managed to catch most of the events and conversations from the last few days without being spotted. Its master was none other than Eggman Nega himself, and he would get more than he bargained for.

When the scout returned to his well-hidden secret lair, the mad scientist grinned maliciously, clearly pleased with the results.

"So, the hedgehog's teaming up with those GUN geeks, eh? Perfect. Just before I crush them all, I can give them all a sneak peek of my little one act play I've so lovingly entitled "The Face of Destruction"! Oh, V.A.I.G., would you be a dear and patch me into the GUN mainframe?"

V.A.I.G., short for Variable Aerial Intelligence Gatherer, was the name of the fly itself. It did as it was instructed. Commander Austin Blake popped up on his computer screen.

"You!" The word was clearly hissed with a brand of reviled disgust that came with coming face-to-face with the one who ripped away a vast majority of the people you ever cared about in the blink of an eye. "What do you want?"

"Now, now. Is that any way to treat an old friend?"

A vein popped on the prematurely graying commanding officer's forehead. "You're no friend of mine, you maniac!"

Eggman seemed to be anything but rattled at this response. In fact, his grin only grew wider. "So you do remember me. Glorious! I have something you might want to see?"

"Is it your corpse unmoving on the ground?" Blake looked ready to tear apart the nearest thing he could find.

"Nothing of the sort. I would just like to show you a little video. I promise you it won't take up too much of your time."

Without delay, the scientist played the video. A voiceover of his own making greeted GUN and the world with his plan.

_Welcome to a little video I like to call "The Face of Destruction-A Brief Overview" if you're watching this, your city, state, country, or planet has been selected to be the next lucky bearer of this gorgeous mug right here!_

A brief flash of Eggman Nega's insignia, walrus mustache and all, appeared surrounded by the ruins of the vast desert before he continued.

_Beautiful, isn't it? It certainly makes the Rhodesian Desert Quarter just "pop", doesn't it? The best part is, you can have this gorgeous keepsake in your clearly populated town or city today, absolutely free!_

He had spoken the last sentence with salesman like enthusiasm, with more than a touch of childlike glee attached. The scene changed to a giant missile launching platform.

_How do I plan to do this, you may ask? Well, both my secret underground base and a satellite way up in outer space are coordinated to launch a specific set of missiles, powered by the Chaos Emeralds of course, at a specific place at a specific time. For now, that time and place will remain a bit of a secret between me and me. Not to worry, though. I might just slide you the information with just enough time for living creatures to maybe evacuate. Wouldn't want to spoil the surprise, would we? Anyhow, that's all for now. I've got to prepare, you know. The world's greatest fireworks show is about to begin! It's going to be a blast! Ta-ta!_

The scientist watched with twisted glee as the commander's face warped from anger to straight out horror, to nausea, and back to horror again as the movie went on. When it stopped, the man was just in shock. It lasted for all but one minute before he buried it under a mask of pure hatred.

"Give me those locations right now, you MONSTER!"

He wagged a finger at the screen. "Ah, ah, ah. Wouldn't want to spoil all the fun, would we?"

"GUN_will _hunt you down with every resource it has! And you better hope you never run into me, because unlike a lot of people here, I don't just want you to rot in a jail cell for what you've done. I want to personally _end_ you! You slaughtered my family, and I can't wait to return the favor!"

"You're still upset about that?" The scientist's face showed mock confusion. "Really and truly, that grenade only _accidentally_ went off in front of your family at that park. Who knew that a few aunts, uncles, cousins, and six-year-olds couldn't take a few bits of shrapnel and fiery gunpowder, hmm?"

"I will burn you. You won't know how, and you won't know when, but I will do it." The man's fists were balled up, coiled like two cobras ready to strike.

"I don't even get a goodbye? A pity. Well, you can go ahead and call your two pets," Eggman said, referring to Angela and Matt. "After all, they are the closest thing you've got to an illusion of a chance to stop me. Until next time!"

He clicked the monitor off. It was shaping up to be another lovely afternoon. Soon enough he would gather all the Chaos Emeralds and burn his legacy (literally) into everyone's minds, and he had just the thing to stop a certain hedgehog in his tracks. Everything was going according to plan, and right on schedule. All that was left to do today was to pick up a late dinner. After all, building legacies really worked up an appetite.


	10. Chapter 10 - Dreams of an Invention

"Okay, why do I have to keep wearing this thing again?"

Silver squirmed under his silk-like covering adorned with strange green lights, it a shade grayer than the time-traveler himself. Angela was inspecting her handiwork as Matt stood beside her, arms crossed and very bored. They were in the spare room he'd slept in which was now actually his…for the time being.

"I told you. This cloak is the only thing I could really come up with to hide you on such short notice."

Silver grimaced. "This thing looks gaudy. "

Matt nodded. For once, he agreed with the hedgehog fully. "Did you really need the lights for your 'invisibility cloak'?"

Angela actually looked offended by that remark. Her hands flew to her hips. "Talk about ungrateful! Look, it took me an entire day to whip up this thing!"

"…and she's off again," Matt took out a book from a puff of smoke in literal thin air and started reading. Silver wasn't sure what to be more shocked at, frankly.

By now, Angle was making hand gestures with reckless abandon. "…takes _years. _Not to mention the countless _hours _of R&amp;D! You think this stuff just materializes overnight?"

Silver shot a look at the ninja. "So, uh, when does she usually stop?"

"As soon as something else distracts her," he answered, barely batting an eye at the issue at hand.

"Like what?"

"Like this." He closed his book and cleared his throat. "Hey, Ange! Wasn't there another reason we came outside of your whole blanket gizmo?"

As if someone had flipped a switch, the gadgeteer suddenly snapped out of her rant. "Yeah, there was. There's something the commander wanted us to see." She abruptly began to walk out of the room, expecting the other two to follow. "Come on!"

It didn't take a genius to realize just how insane Dr. Eggman Nega was. He'd torched whole_cities _on a whim, and endangered hundreds more. Yet, the video that was playing right in front of their faces still served as a chilling reminder of that fact.

"I believe you know what to do about this," Commander Blake said after the video had finished. The two agents nodded in affirmation, with a hidden from view Silver doing the same.

"What puzzles me is how he managed to burn down entire desert in _secret_. Somebody should've known about that."

"That's the thing about that _creature_," Blake responded, struggling to keep an official tone as he said the word "creature". "He diverse our attention with little fires that he makes for us to put out. Then without warning, he drops this raging inferno on top of us."

"Still…" Angela's eyebrows fluttered, a sign that she was deep in thought. "One has to wonder, is there something else up his sleeve other than the usual anarchy and destruction for no real reason this time?"

"That's precisely what I'd like you to find out. Angela, Matthew, sort this out. Sort it out as quickly and quietly as possible. The last thing I want, and the last thing anyone needs, is that maniac getting his kicks watching the global pandemonium that would ensue. Get on it."

"With all due respect sir," Matt interjected. "What about the Chaos Emeralds? Gathering those is crucial, too."

"Of course! Get them before him at all costs. If he gets his hands on the gems first, it'll be the end of the world as we know it." Blake's gaze softened for a moment. "Look, we don't have many options. GUN's stretched thin with the 'small fires' I mentioned and agent Shadow hasn't been seen in ages. As far as we can gather, you're our only shot. If you need any briefing, my desk's a phone call away. Otherwise, get going." With that, the prematurely graying young GUN Commander signed off to clean up his massive plate.

Red hot flames of determination shown behind the girl's sunglasses. "Whatever he's planning, he's not gonna get away with it! Let's get to the ship. I'm in the mood for some scrambled Eggman!"

Matt smirked. "Aren't we always?"

"Yeah, now let's go find Silver and shove off already!" A few unanswered calls of the hedgehog's name later, the duo realized they were once again alone. The boy shook his head, more in exasperation than anything else.

"Just great. It seems like our little houseguest took off during the briefing. Got any ideas as to where?"

"Let's see…" Angela looked around, not spotting the cloak she made it anywhere. A smile grew on her face as an idea formed in her head. "Thankfully, I put a hidden tracker in everything I invent. Can't ever be too careful, you know." She dug out her special tracking device dedicated to locating her own items by serial number. It was one of her earlier inventions, but it often proved more useful than one would think, especially to one as scatterbrained as she was.

"You got a lock on your latest toy?"

Whatever offense she took to one of her inventions being called a 'toy' barely showed on her features, buried under an expression of pure focus. "Yup. Our newest serial number, the 'Stealth Master', is headed straight toward the desert region to the south. Thank goodness he never took it off, or we'd never be able to find him."

Within a few minutes, they were both prepared and off for the Rhodesian Desert Quarter.


End file.
